US stock market opens lower

NEW YORK (AA) - The stock market opened lower Wednesday as oil prices started to decline once again.

The Dow Jones decreased 27 points to begin the day at 18,519. The S&P 500 was down two points to 2,184, while the Nasdaq fell six points to 5,253 at the start of the day.

At the first bell, American benchmark West Texas Intermediate traded at $47.33 a barrel, a 1.3 percent decline, while international benchmark Brent crude saw a 0.8 percent loss at $49.46 per barrel.

The global oil market and investors will be focusing on weekly crude oil and gasoline inventories in the U.S. which will be announced later Wednesday.